Nick's Life: January 2013

One morning I'm standing at the sink shaving, and Nick comes looking for dental floss, then walks away.  A few minutes later he returns with a potato chip bag clip on the end of the floss, with a paper shark clipped to it; he had built a rather expensive fishing pole. I just continued shaving.  He looks in the mirror and says, "I look great!" So I asked him, what about me?  "You're almost handsome, Dad."

We are eating salmon, and his mama and I try to teach him about avoiding fish bones.  Netiher of us encounter a single bone... he tongues two in the following minute. Seems like a grown-up lesson he picked up quick.  He also helps his mama around the house, scrubbing floors for her.

The inflow of books is getting out of hand.  The school, which probably is worried that the average parent doesn't read to their kid, overwhelms us with book sales and library trips.  We've got so many shark and sea life books in the house that we're drowning in them (my best pun today). We buy him plenty of books and still read every day, although now he's reading to us. I pulled out the Children's Bible one evening and read him Noah and the Ark.  He asks, "Where are the sharks?" Now, in forty years of reading this story, I never questioned the absence of mention of the ocean creatures.  He humbles me with insight sometimes.

Mama still helps at school each Friday for a couple hours, and takes her famous muffins. She took bran muffins one day, though, and several kids had poo-emergencies.  I would think the Taco Del Mar he loves lately would clean someone out. Nasty stuff.

His drawing and painting is amazing, and we're now hanging them up on the walls.  Not like refrigerator fodder, but actual paintings on the canvas Jessica got him for Christmas.  Pictured here is of one of his good ones, which hangs in his room. I was in an art gallery in Houston (The Galleria) where people were buying $20K art off the walls around me, and Gina corners me to sell me something.  I had time to kill and enjoyed hearing about the life of the rich (she's saving for a Maserati), but didn't hesitate to brag about my artist and show her my pictures.  Really, I told her I'd be more interested in the art of kids than the flashy stuff... if her daughter had any paintings, I'd be interested in buying.  Or I'd sell her one of Nick's.

Nick's breath was really bad, and I asked him what was going on.  He says, "My breath is just got slimy, stinky, tonsil balls."  Lately everything is "I feel I need a..." or "I feel there should be..."  He's full of feelings all of a sudden.

Few pictures this month (click here), including the dress-up parade at school (Nick is a snowman, costume made by mama) and Nick playing with the real flight simulator his Uncle Jason got him for Christmas.

- Jason